


The Smallest Version of Paraguay

by sevenfists



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-09
Updated: 2006-07-09
Packaged: 2018-10-27 11:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10808247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: They break down somewhere northeast of Warsaw, in the middle of Amish country. The car sputters unhappily and then gives up altogether. It's July.





	The Smallest Version of Paraguay

**Author's Note:**

> For the spn_50states challenge. Thanks to randomeliza for the beta.

Ohio is hot, hilly.

They break down somewhere northeast of Warsaw, in the middle of Amish country. The car sputters unhappily and then gives up altogether. It's July.

Sam opens the passenger door and sits sideways, his feet scuffing in the roadside dust, and watches horse-drawn buggies go by. The drivers wave at him: men in blue clothing, black hats, their faces buried under enormous beards. He waves back.

It's quiet. He can hear children laughing somewhere. Occasionally another car drives past. He opens the glove compartment, eats some of the peanut M&Ms Dean's stashed there.

"Quit eating my M&Ms," Dean says, surfacing from beneath the popped hood.

"They're just gonna melt," Sam says, and shoves another handful in his mouth.

Dean glares at him. He's shirtless, sweat- and grease-streaked, holding a wrench in each hand. Sam looks away, watches the corn fields ripple with the breeze, a motion like cows twitching flies off their haunches.

"Just fix the car," he says.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean grumbles, going back under. "I could use some fuckin' help, you know."

"I think your exact words were, 'Keep your hands off my goddamn car before you fuck it up even worse,'" Sam says. He eats some more M&Ms.

Dean doesn't answer.

Sam doesn't ask what's wrong with the car, and Dean doesn't tell him, but it can't be more than half an hour before they're back on the road.

"Should hold up," Dean says, and that's that. He hums a little, taps on the steering wheel, passes another buggy.

"You don't think we should take it in?" Sam asks.

Dean glances over at him, mouth pursed a little. He doesn't answer.

Warsaw's tiny. It turns out there isn't even a motel, so they end up driving the ten miles to Coshocton and checking in to a Super 8.

It's late afternoon.

They drive back to Warsaw, poke around for a while. Nobody wants to talk to them. It's the sort of town where news of strangers spreads like wildfire, and soon even the kids are looking at them askance, suspicious.

"Let's get dinner," Dean says, so they go to a place called Granny's Kountry Kitchen. Dean flirts with their waitress. Sam eats apple pie.

"We can head to the bridge after dark," Sam says.

Dean shrugs. "Okay," he says. He steals a bite of Sam's pie.

They sit on the curb outside the restaurant after dinner, watching people walk around in the fading light, families buying ice cream, kids racing each other on their bikes.

"Everyone looks happy," Sam says.

"Hmm," Dean says. He bites at a hangnail.

The bridge is a little west of town. Dean parks on the side of the road. They get out. The river's dark, rushing, swollen from summer thunderstorms. Sam leans over the railing, watching debris float downstream, swift and obscure.

"I don't hear any babies crying," Dean says.

Sam rolls his eyes. "It doesn't happen until midnight, Dean."

"Huh," Dean says. He goes back to the car, comes back with the bag of M&Ms. "Want some?"

"Yeah," Sam says, and takes a handful. They sit on the railing and wait. One car drives past, heading west down 36. Insects hum in the underbrush. Below them, a frog croaks. Dean scratches furiously at his arms.

"I told you to buy some bug spray," Sam says.

"Fucking mosquitoes," Dean grumbles. He's allergic, gets nickel-sized welts. Sam doesn't even feel them bite.

Dean's upper lip is beaded with sweat, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. It's dark enough out here that Sam can see the Milky Way furling out overhead—a little dim, but visible, the dual tracks arcing across the part of the sky that isn't hidden by trees. Dean shifts on the railing, eats some more M&Ms. He's a warm presence, reliable, unsettling.

"So," Sam says, and then can't think of anything to say.

"Don't keep me in suspense, Sammy," Dean says. He chews with his mouth open just a little—not enough to be gross, but more than enough to irritate the hell out of Sam.

"I was just. Um," Sam says. "You remember that time we saw the meteor shower?"

Dean laughs softly. "Yeah. Where was that, Montana or somewhere?"

"I think it was Wyoming." Sam sticks his hand in the M&Ms bag, his fingers colliding with Dean's.

"And Dad dragged us out to the middle of that field, and you kept bitching about how your jeans were getting wet and you just wanted to go back to sleep. Yeah, I remember," Dean says, and snatches the bag away.

"Man, I was thirteen. It's not like you were any better at that age," Sam says.

"I was an angel," Dean says. "Those meteors were really something, weren't they."

"Yeah," Sam says. "They really were." He watches Dean's profile, the smooth curve of his jaw, the way the corner of his mouth quirks up in a smile.

"We had some good times," Dean says, and holds out the bag.

Right at midnight, they hear the crying.

"That's fucking creepy," Dean says.

It is: a baby's high-pitched wails coming from _below_ them, under the bridge or down in the water. Sam makes a face. Dean, of course, gets up and peers over the railing.

"I don't see anything," he says.

They wait. The crying goes on for fifteen minutes, and then stops abruptly, mid-wail. The bugs wind back up to full pitch. An owl hoots.

"So how the hell does a crying baby make three grown men disappear," Dean says.

Sam bends over to pick at the sole of his shoe where the rubber's peeling away. "I don't know," he says.

***

Sam wakes before dawn, when pale gray light is just starting to creep in and picking out subtle highlights in the wallpaper. He was dreaming about something that he doesn't remember now. He rolls out of bed and climbs in with Dean, not thinking, letting his body move where it wants to.

Dean stirs, turns over. "You're too old for this, Sammy," he mumbles, his eyes still closed.

"I had a dream," Sam says.

"So did Martin Luther King," Dean says. "Get outta my bed."

Sam gets up, looks for his running shoes.

He goes for miles, sticking to the highway at first but then turning down roads marked only by a number, if that. It cooled down overnight, and the sun's a welcome warmth against his skin. He sees Amish people out in the yards of their tidy white houses. They wave to him.

He waves back.

He's sweaty and tired by the time he gets back to the motel, but his head's quiet for once, every thought pounded out of him miles back.

"Where were you?" Dean demands as soon as Sam's inside.

"Running," Sam says, stating the obvious. "A slow man's a dead man, remember?"

Dean's mouth twitches. "All right, Carl Lewis. Get your ass in the shower, I'm hungry." He looks calm, unbothered. He might not even remember their pre-dawn conversation.

They go to the Coshocton library after breakfast. Sam hauls a huge stack of newspapers over to where Dean's using their laptop to surf the internet.

"White Woman Creek," Dean says after a while.

Sam looks up from an article on the proliferation of Satanic cults in rural Ohio. "What?"

"It's an old name for the Walhonding River," Dean says.

"Oh," Sam says, his brain firing rapidly, click-click-click, things slotting into place. He puts the paper down. "So you think we're dealing with two spirits? The Crybaby and a Woman in White."

"Looks that way," Dean says. "None of the Crybaby Bridge stories say anything about people _dying_. It's just the crying and the freaky-ass handprints on the car."

"So. Okay," Sam says.

Dean snaps the laptop shut. "It'll be easy," he says. "Dollars to donuts that's her kid wailing under the bridge. Get rid of both of them at once."

They go to lunch. Dean flips through Dad's journal, takes notes. Sam goes to the bathroom, and when he comes back, Dean's sucking on his pen, absentmindedly rolling it against his lower lip.

Sam sits down and grabs for his coffee, still staring. He doesn't look away fast enough when Dean glances up, and they freeze like that, a stupid tableau, Sam's hand clenching around the chipped ceramic mug.

"Um," Dean says. He looks down at the journal, his eyelashes fanning out dark and filament-thin. "So, uh. The Woman in White."

"Yeah," Sam says. "Her."

That night, they go back to the bridge. It's quiet—no insects mating or shrieking or whatever it is they do. No owls. No frogs. They walk onto the bridge. Nothing moves. The air's still the way it is during a snowfall. Sam presses his hand against the small of his back, feeling the handle of the gun tucked there, between his underwear and his skin.

"You keep watch," Dean says. He locks and loads, scrambles down the bank of the river.

Sam stands in the middle of the bridge, straddling the yellow dividing line. No cars come. There are lights far away, a little cluster of them.

He can hear Dean tromping around, cursing occasionally and saying things in muffled Latin. Sam isn't sure what the plan is, what it is that Dean's doing. He didn't ask. Dean didn't tell him.

"Okay," Dean says, climbing back onto the bridge. His boots are muddy. There's a smear of blue chalk beside his nose. Sam curls his fingers against the palms of his hands, digs in with his nails. They're too short and ragged to do any good.

"What now?" he asks.

"We wait," Dean says. He sits down in the middle of the road, his legs crossed like he's a little kid at summer camp. He looks stupid. It doesn't stop the hot rush in Sam's belly.

Sam sits down too, leans back against the low railing. His left foot rests against Dean's thigh, and Dean starts picking at the fraying hem of Sam's jeans, his fingers brushing the bare knob of Sam's ankle where the fabric has ridden up. Sam twitches.

"Jumpy," Dean says.

"No," Sam says, gritting his teeth. He leaves his foot where it is.

They wait.

At midnight, there's a flash of light under the bridge, expanding outward and then shrinking back into itself, swift and tearing. Sam starts and almost brains Dean with his shoe.

"Settle the fuck down," Dean says, and gets up. "Let's go."

"That was it?" Sam asks stupidly. His shoelace has come untied. "Kind of anticlimactic."

"That was it," Dean agrees. He stands there watching Sam, face inscrutable, shotgun dangling from his right hand. "You coming?" He turns and walks to the car without waiting for Sam to respond.

"Yeah," Sam says to Dean's retreating back.

He still doesn't know what happened, what Dean did to get rid of the Woman in White and her crying baby. It doesn't matter, really; Dean is the one who's got everything figured out. Sam's just along for the ride.

***

Most of the motel windows are dark, everybody tucked in for the night, doors bolted or not, depending on how paranoid the occupants are. Sam doesn't know. One of the grommets on his left pocket is separating from the material. He picks at it, standing there in front of room 26, waiting for Dean to unlock the door.

"I'm going to bed," Dean says, kicking the door shut. Sam places one hand on the back of Dean's neck, a light and careful touch, but Dean freezes anyway, his arm stretched out to deposit the keys on the rickety table beside the door.

"Dean," Sam says, and then can't think of anything to say. He bends his head, noses at Dean's hair, the thin film of sweat along the nape of his neck. The hard knob of Dean's spinal column is round and prominent beneath Sam's mouth.

"What," Dean says, but Sam slides his hands beneath Dean's t-shirt, presses his hands against Dean's belly and turns him until they're toe to toe, mouth to mouth.

"I just," Sam says, his lips brushing Dean's. He bites Dean's lower lip. Dean still doesn't move. Sam scrapes his nails up Dean's ribs, counting each curved bone as he goes.

He wants to move faster but his hands shake, he can't.

He moves his mouth down Dean's neck, running his lips over Dean's Adam's apple. Dean swallows, shivers. His hands come up to rest on Sam's hips, push him away.

"I can't," Dean says. He won't look at Sam. "I'm gonna take a shower."

The pipes shriek when the water cuts on. Sam lies down on the bed. The ceiling's speckled, nubbly. He traces his fingers over the seams on the bedspread, sewn lines intersecting here and there but mostly going their own way. Dean is inextricable, necessary, buried deeper in Sam than blood or marrow.

The television in the next room turns on; turns off again.

Dean comes out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, and digs in his bag. Sam watches as Dean drops his towel, pulls on boxers and a t-shirt. He's still staring when Dean turns around, and Dean raises one hand to the back of his head, running it over his hair.

"I, uh. I'm gonna hit the sack. We should get going early," Dean says.

"Yeah," Sam says. He toes off his shoes and kicks them onto the floor. Falls asleep right there, on top of the sheets.

In the morning, they dress without speaking, go to breakfast. Dean makes a beeline for the counter. He flirts shamelessly with the waitress, his mouth curving wickedly, and she blushes and brings him extra home fries.

"Ketchup?" Dean asks, looking at his plate instead of at Sam.

"Here," Sam says, and passes him the ketchup. Their fingers brush. Dean jerks his hand away, and the bottle falls to the counter. Their waitress turns, startled.

"Sorry," Dean mumbles, and rights the bottle. There's dried ketchup crusted around the rim. Dean picks at it with his thumbnail, flaking it off.

Sam's always wanted things he can't have. Dean is just another entry on the list.

***

The bridge looks just the same when they drive over it, heading west, toward the next job. Sam holds his breath until they pass over it, feeling superstitious.

It's almost noon. The sky is washed-out and heat-pale, deepening into blue around the edges. Sam counts sheep as they drive by. Then cows. When they were little, bored during interminable car trips, Dad would give them each a penny for every herd they spotted. Sam doesn't remember when they stopped doing that, or why. It just ended.

Sam sees another cluster of cows, dozing under a tree, swishing their tails lazily. Sam thinks about blood cells and oxygen. The air in the car is thick like a bad dream. His lungs feel tight with every inhalation, his entire body struggling against the forces of gravity and human nature.

A cow heaves itself to its feet and wanders toward the crest of a hill, mottled, stupid, and going nowhere. "So, Kentucky next," Sam says.

Dean taps his fingers against the steering wheel. He doesn't answer.  



End file.
